Lessons & Films Preview

The Creative Thinking project utilizes the expertise of professional colleagues, college students, and community partners for the creation of an intellectual property awareness program intended for teens and young adults. An overview of the two lessons follow. The cirriculum is designed for flexible use in many courses from library instruction and literature to history, science, and the arts.

The primary content of this site was initially targeted for use as junior high school through freshman college lessons. However, since many educators requested that we introduce related lessons for upper elementary classes, Book Discussions for the popular books Masterpiece and Scumble are now available to proactively address plagiarism and copyright challenges with research writing exercises for younger students too.

Your review and feedback on the Creative Thinking program is encouraged. Please direct any comments, questions, and suggestions to John Schlipp via email: schlippj1@nku.edu or feel free to call (859) 572-5723. Thanks for visiting our site.

Plagiarism Films

The following NKU original films may be found on this site in the Films section:

Story Film: Intellectual Vengeance is an orginal NKU film class produced story of a student who deliberately plagiarizes a paper for another student, thus tarnishing his reputation. Film topices covered include academic dishonesty, plagiarism, cutting-n-pasting off the web, academic/career consequences of plagiarism, etc. Pop-up questions and statements are provided for the students to think about while viewing and for classroom discussion.

Expert Film: Creative Thinking Credit Where Credit is Due - John Alberti. Covers why citations are helpful as reference to other students for when they research and write, giving credit where credit is due, etc. Alberti is the author of Text Messaging which offers additional insight and activities.

Student Activities

Highlights include student group discussions on consequences and ethics of plagiarism after viewing the Creative Thinking films, preparing reports on plagiarism topics in the news, and identifying text samples which are either plagiarized or not.

Optional Ideas

We suggest utilizing one or more of the following:

Simpsons television episode: Bart the Genius for class assignment and discussion

Copyright and Fair Use Films

The following NKU original films may be found on this site in the Films section.

Story Film: Copyright: the Right to Copy! is another original NKU film class story of a local college garage band and their challenges with copyright. The film touches on the following topics: copyright infringement; permission to use & registration of one's own works; illegal file sharing; practical & legal consequences; fair use; ethics and respect for others' works, etc. As with the plagiarism film, pop-up questions and statements are provided for the students to think about while viewing and for classroom discussion.

Student Activities

Highlights include student group discussion about copyright and fair use after viewing films and handouts, reporting their view on an assigned real-life scenario related to all topics presented in both lessons, and coming up with an idea for a product, service, or creative work and identify which types of intellectual property could apply.

Optional Ideas

We suggest utilizing one or more of the following:

Jeopardy-like game show: Students prepare questions and answers on related topics

Free databases: Online databases, such as U.S. Copyright Office and Patent Office, where students search for ideas

Show-and-Tell: Music, books, and other media packages for students to present as intellectual property examples